A bombshell from Tuesday's Post: "Several D.C. Council members were negotiating late yesterday to introduce emergency legislation today that would revive a plan to build condominiums and parking garages near a new baseball stadium in Southeast Washington. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) was leading the effort and had distributed a bill that seeks to alter the $611 million stadium cost cap approved by the council in March. The legislation would allow the city to spend money from the sale of development rights on stadium land to pay for the parking garages." As an emergency bill it would require 9 of 13 council votes, and CFO Gandhi has already said he has "grave concerns". And the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission would be stripped of control of the garages land, handing them over to the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation and allowing them to negotiate with the Lerners. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride continues....

Today's Examiner has "Mayor Williams says parking deal not dead", with not much that's new, but these lines advance the story a tad: " 'We've got to show that development's under way very, very quickly, but at the same time we have to satisfy the need for parking,' Williams said. Williams said talks were ongoing Monday between multiple parties. If the deal does ultimately collapse, the mayor said, the city might have no choice but to build the standalone parking garages sought by Nationals owners, but vehemently opposed by the D.C. Zoning Commission." And the WashPost editorializes about the brouhaha in "Mayor Williams's Dead Deal."

The City Council's long summer break is at last over, and three alley closing proposals that we've been hearing about all summer have finally been entered into the council's online legislation system: Monument Realty's requests for alley closings on both the west side of Square 701 and the southern section of Square 700 (both part of Monument's Ballpark District sites), and William C. Smith's request for realigning the streets in Squares 737N and 739 to make way for a 900,000-sq-ft mixed-use project at New Jersey and H. (And, just for fun, here's the description of what's being requested in Square 739: "[T]he closing of the public alley in Square 739, bounded by New Jersey Avenue, Canal, 2nd, and K Streets, S.E.; the opening [of] I Street, S.E. between 2nd Street and New Jersey Avenue, S.E.; the widening [of] 2nd Street, S.E. between I and K Streets, S.E.; the widening of New Jersey Avenue north of Canal Street, S.E.; the opening of H Street, S.E. to connect to New Jersey Avenue, S.E.; the closure of Closing Canal Street (North), Canal Street (South), and a portion of First Street, S.E.; to accept the dedication and designation of Reservation 17-A and Lot 801, Square 737N for public street purposes; to authorize the improvement of the dedicated land for street purposes; to authorize modifications to the permanent system of highways in the District of Columbia; and to designate the dedicated streets as I Street, S.E. and H Street, S.E and New Jersey Avenue, S.E. in Ward 6." Whew! UPDATE: I should also note that the two Monument Realty requests (Square 700 and 701) are delegated agenda items at the Oct. 5 National Capital Planning Commission meeting.

Today's stadium links (posted without summaries, because watching everyone run around like chickens with their heads cut off, clutching their hearts with doom and gloom, has finally exceeded my Allowable Exasperation Level): DC Examiner has "Mayor: City Must Act Fast on Parking," and the Washington Times has "Stadium Parking Threatens Budget". I'd also remind everyone who is so terrified that if the garages site isn't developed immediately, the Ballpark District will be doomed to failure--it took, what, seven years for the Gallery Place project to be developed just north of the MCI/Verizon Center, and that seemed to turn out okay. The garages site is two blocks within a far larger area that is already well on it's way to being developed, the city is going to get plenty of tax revenue, if those two blocks take a few extra years to get figured out, I don't think the city will crumble. UPDATE, 9/23: A day later, here's the Post's latest parking story, "City's Plans for Stadium Now Focus on Parking." I'm not going to rehash all the garage arguments (you can read the article's rehash, including yet another misguided statement about how a lack of development on those two blocks "could delay the waterfront revival until well after the stadium opens"), but there's an interesting comment at the end: "Monument Vice President Russell Hines said his company would be willing to lease the garages [under the company's planned development one block north of the stadium site] to the city for ballpark parking in 2008 because the office buildings will not be completed until the next year. If the city's fee is high enough, Hines said, Monument might even be willing to delay construction of the offices. 'There may be a solution where we agree to delay completion of our buildings in order to provide parking until another parking solution is provided,' Hines said. 'There's no deal yet, but we're willing to talk.' "

From WTOP: "Herb Miller's Western Development Corporation Baseball Partners rejected a deal from the city to develop parking and retail at the new stadium for the Washington Nationals. The move puts the city at risk of default on the stadium agreement with the Lerner Family. That agreement calls for the city to provide 1,225 parking spaces at the site by opening day in April of 2008. If the District is unable to provide that number of spaces, the Lerners could sue the city for damages. [...] Those options include creating surface parking around the stadium as an interim fix until more permanent parking can be developed. The D.C. Zoning Board has ruled the parking cannot preclude other development on the site, such as retail. " It appears that what they're now arguing about is how much Miller gets compensated for the deal falling through. More as I get it (and perhaps the Post will give us some clarity, this seems a bit jumbled). UPDATE: Here is the WashPost story, which doesn't tell us much that we haven't already heard. The article is a bit overwrought when it says "The dissolution of the Miller project could have far-reaching consequences on the entire baseball experience and the city's planned revival of the waterfront." -- after all, there are millions of square feet of office, residential, and retail projects planned for around the stadium, whether the Garages Wrapped With Development Goodness got built or not. Next step, trying to put 925 parking spaces on the northern edge of the stadium site by Opening Day 2008.

The Florida Rock mixed-use project had a second-stage PUD hearing at the DC Zoning Commission on Monday night; I missed the first 90 minutes, so I can't really give you a solid feel for how it all went; I did detect a fair amount of concern about the easternmost building of the project, an office building (now redesigned to include three floors of retail) at the terminus of First Street, specifically how it impacts the views of the river from the "grand staircase" of the ballpark. There were also still apparently some issues to be resolved with DDOT, the Office of Planning, and the AWC's new plan for a 39,000-sq-ft plaza at the foot of First Street. The Florida Rock folks will be back in front of the Commission in November to address the concerns brought forward. One interesting tidbit did sneak in during Adrian Washington's testimony--he said that the plans for the Ballpark District portion of the WASA site (AWC and Forest City are still in negotiations to acquire the land) is for it to be all residential, perhaps as many as 800 units. If that Ballpark Development Strategy ever sees the light of day, we'll get more details, I'm sure.

From Saturday's Post: "District government officials believe a plan to build condominiums and parking garages adjacent to a new baseball stadium in Southeast Washington is in danger of collapsing and have offered to buy out the developer for nearly $1 million." The short of it--the city has delivered a contract to Herb Miller for the project, but the contract would need approval from Lerners, which it most likely would not get. So the contract also has in it a $990,000 payment to Miller if the deal falls through (Miller is quoted later in the story as saying he's incurred $5.5 million in design and other costs on this project, at the city's request). Why $990k? Because any payment more than $1 million requires city council approval. So, what would happen? "If Miller's towers are not built, commission officials have said they would consider paving over the area to provide surface-level parking spots with the potential for future development. Another possibility would be to ask the D.C. Council for more money to build garages underground or aboveground, commission officials said." Miller has until Wednesday to sign the contract, so we should know the resolution on this before too much longer. Or, have I said that before?

At Monday's ANC 6D meeting, the request to close 7,500 sq ft of alleys on the east side of Square 701 (1st, M, N, and Half) came before the commission again. The developers' initial request for the ANC's support back in July, which included an offer of a $35,000 "community amenities package", was referred to the ANC's development subcommittee. At Monday's meeting, the request was re-presented, with the amenities amount increased to $95,000. This was not enough for some members of the ANC, however, so the request has been tabled until the October meeting. UPDATE: The DC Council hearing on this bill is scheduled for Oct. 16 at 10:45 am.

With the latest news about Florida Rock's design modifications, Monument Realty's bid for the WMATA land at Half and M, the still-in-limbo Stadium Garages Wrapped With Development Goodness, and the apparent moving forward by the Cohen, Camalier/Davis, and Welch families to develop their land along First Street, it appears that the Ballpark District is moving forward, despite the AWC's still never having released it's "Development Strategy" for the area. So, fresh off my success with my North of M map, I've created a Ballpark District map to better help keep track of what's happening. Be aware that the boundaries I drew for the new public plaza at the foot of 1st Street are not really based on anything other than trying to remember how it looked in Florida Rock's exhibits to the ANC. And no final design for the traffic roundabout at South Capitol and Potomac has been released yet, either. UPDATE: And, for the heck of it, I just added a page with both maps fused together, creating a pretty nice Stadium Corridor Development Guide. But be prepared to scroll :-).

From today's Post, word that negotiations between Herb Miller and the city on the Garages Wrapped with Development Goodness have "bogged down because of financing complications," and the city fears that his proposal will fall through and have "begun developing a plan that relies heavily on surface-level parking lots." It says that negotiations are to resume today--interesting timing of this story, then!--and that the main issues are whether the plan violates the $611 million stadium cost cap and who will pay for any overruns. The story says that if the deal falls through, "The sports commission has explored the possibility of paving over the five-acre plot north of the stadium to provide surface level lots for the scheduled opening of the stadium in April 2008. A temporary one-level garage might be included to reach the required number of parking spaces. Under that plan, additional development could be built in the future by Miller or another developer."